virgo venus is always open for submissions.

now. please read the rest of this.

as with any literary magazine, the best way to know what kind of stuff we publish is to read through our archives. our mission is to give works that defy traditional genre boundaries a home, and as such, we are open to reading a lot of weird/good shit. that said, we’re probably NOT the best fit for work that might fall under the category of fantasy, romantasy, or anything ending in ‘tasy.’ that is, actually, very categorizable genre fiction and not what we mean by genre-bendy. genre fiction is not for us.

what are we looking for?

we’ll know it when we see it. style, mostly. a little bit of the thing we call “spark,” which is often hard to pin down and a matter of personal taste. but if we had to define the undefinable, probably, something like this: prose that cuts like a knife. we do not like a lot of adjectives or adverbs (mostly. occasionally, we do). we prefer short, curt sentences that get straight to the point. unless you’re doing a Luke Goebal thing. Then, by all means, go down the long and windy and weird as fuck road. just do it with intention. and use language the way real people speak. plop us closer in with a hard opening. we like voice-driven stories rather than plot. and working hard. make us think about it for days. fiction that reads like an essay. essays that read like fiction. poems. lots of poems. put line breaks

where /they don’t. /belong.

we are generally very homesick and will probably publish anything that feels like it takes us back, somewhere. be it a time or place or feeling or whatever it is. again, good luck getting us to describe it.

more direct examples of writers we like: Heather Lewis, Maggie Nelson, Melissa Febos, Michelle Tea, Jia Tolentino, Joe Brainard, Elena Ferrante, Imogen Binnie, Kathy Acker, and Jeanette Winterson.

send us your creative nonfiction. send us your autofiction. send us your prose. send us that thing you’re not sure how to categorize. we are super selective about poetry. but go ahead. go ahead and hit send. we’ll read it no matter what. even if you didn’t read this. yes, that is a diss.

we do not have a strict guidance on word length; however, it takes us longer to review anything over 4,000 words. we will. if it is really, really good. ofc. our sweet spot is between 1500-2000 words.

how to submit:

send us an email at VIRGOVENUSPRESS at GMAIL dot COM with your work. all work must be completed; we do not consider pitches. please include:

  • third-person author bio and instagram handle (if applicable).

  • a one-song soundscape to be featured alongside your piece. a soundscape is exactly what it sounds like: a song. send us the name of a song and the artist. you can send us a link to this song on Spotify or Bandcamp. really all we need is the name. if you read the archives, you will see examples of this in the other work. sooooo.

  • verbal confirmation that you hold all rights to your work and no AI was used in the creation or writing of the piece.

  • please paste your work into the body of an email without links or attachments. we do not click on links or open unsolicited documents from strangers. if you send us an attachment, we will delete your submission.

here’s an example:

simultaneous submissions are accepted, but please notify us immediately if a piece is accepted elsewhere. work previously published in any form cannot be considered.

please refrain from submitting your work if you are a racist, a homophobe, a sexist, or an asshole.

we work collaboratively with all of our contributors. this means, if your piece is accepted, you can expect some editorial feedback/notes. the press is quite literally called VIRGO venus. putting in effort is important to us.

by submitting to Virgo Venus Press, if accepted, you agree to grant us first electronic rights and non-exclusive archival rights. all other rights revert to the original author or artist upon publication. we request that you cite us as the first place of publication if your piece is republished elsewhere. all submissions remain the intellectual property of the creator.

text submitted must be original and entirely the author’s own work. we do not consider work generated through the use of AI.